Page 14 of Blood Debt

I picture her eyes lighting up when she sees it.

My phone rings.

I wipe my hands on a dish towel and reach for it.

It’s my mother.

I answer. “Mama?”

Her voice hits me like a slap.

“She’s gone.” Her breath is ragged, panicked. “*Serafina, I can’t find her. Bianca—she’s not at school—they can’t find her—I don’t know where she is—”

My hand goes numb.

The phone slips through my fingers.

Hits the tile.

Clatters.

And the world goes silent.

****

Tony gets out of the car door before I do. I barely feel my boots hit the ground before I’m moving clumsily, eyes darting across the pale concrete of the entryway. My mother stands near the gates, her hands trembling around a damp handkerchief, face blotched with tears. A staff member speaks to her gently, hand at her elbow.

I don’t stop to speak.

The schoolyard is wide and green, ringed with short trees and a sagging perimeter fence. Red and yellow plastic toys lie forgotten in the grass. A row of teachers in navy uniforms forms a kind of human chain near the play structure, their faces paleand tight. One of them speaks into a radio. Another scans the hedges behind the sandbox.

Tony catches up beside me.

“She wasn’t signed out,” one teacher says quickly, running up to us. “No one saw her leave. We’ve called local patrol already—”

I push past her, heart hammering against my ribs.

“Bianca!” I call. My voice cracks.

Nothing.

I jog across the grass, heading toward the back field, breath growing shorter with every step. The wind tugs at my coat, flinging my hair into my face. I shove it back, scan left, right—then I see it.

There, by the outer fence. Her backpack.

It lies on its side, as if it were dropped mid-step. The pink strap is twisted beneath the weight of the bag, one pocket hanging open.

I stumble to it, fall to my knees. My fingers fumble for the zipper, yanking it wide. Her lunchbox is gone. The water bottle is cracked, the cap still half-screwed on.

Tony drops down beside me. “Serafina—”

“She was here. She was right here.” My hands are trembling too much to close the bag.

“We’ll find her.”

“No. No, no, no—” I shake my head. I can’t see straight. I can’t breathe. “She was just supposed to be in class. How—how does a seven-year-old just disappear?”

Tony doesn’t speak. His face has gone still—tight across the jaw, eyes scanning the field behind me, fingers twitching at his sides like they want to act, to break something.